Drone brood

[whoosling]

Can only find drone brood when I opened up one of my hives, couldn't find the queen (but I'm not good at that).There were raised bumps scattered all over most of the frames. Help what do I do now?

 

[Pete D]

You either have a drone laying queen so you need to find and destroy her and then unite the bees to another hive
or
no queen and a laying worker so you remove the hive to a spot a few feet the other side of your other 2 hives and one by one shake all the bees off of the frames in front of your other 2 hives. They will let the bees in but not the laying worker. Then remove the hive to storeage, clean it up etc.

You can also do the second option for the first answer if you dont find the queen or are unsure.
The quality of bees in the drone laying hive will be either old so wont last long
or drones so wont do any work.
Oh and fill the winter survival poll in.

Good luck

 

[masterBK]

Laying worker ? Only rarely do you get one acting as a pseudo queen. Normally get dozens of Laying workers in a colony. Look for several eggs in the cells with eggs at all angles with some on the sides as well as the bottom of the cell.

Drone laying queens lay one egg per cell (generally) and tend to have a more compact pattern than that found with laying workers.

Whether drone laying queen or laying workers as Pete D mentioned , the workers will be old. In addition Varroa numbers likely to be up due to the drone brood and you may see bees with deformed wing virus, abandoned drone brood and drone chalk brood. Not good news I'm afraid.

 

[whoosling]

Thanks - I think!!!!!

 

[sharonh]

I had the same last year. Multiple eggs in cells and uneven pattern. Laying workers. I gave them a good smoke so that they swallowed up as much honey as they could. The workers are excepted into other hives more readily if full of honey when you empty them out of the hive.
You will need to establish first is it a drone laying Queen or drone laying workers. One egg per cell with Queen. Multiple eggs per cell and usually on side walls for drone laying workers.

 

[whoosling]

I had the same last year. Multiple eggs in cells and uneven pattern. Laying workers. I gave them a good smoke so that they swallowed up as much honey as they could. The workers are excepted into other hives more readily if full of honey when you empty them out of the hive.
You will need to establish first is it a drone laying Queen or drone laying workers. One egg per cell with Queen. Multiple eggs per cell and usually on side walls for drone laying workers.

thanks
My eyesites not fantastic so I couldn't see eggs and to make matters worse couldn't find the queen, will have to take up a magnifying glass or find someone with better eyes who are willing to have a look !!!!!

 

[sharonh]

thanks
My eyesites not fantastic so I couldn't see eggs and to make matters worse couldn't find the queen, will have to take up a magnifying glass or find someone with better eyes who are willing to have a look !!!!!

I bought a headband magnifier from thorns, leaves your hands free. Great thing for looking at eggs.
Usually very uneven pattern with raised drone brood for laying workers.
Queens pattern of lay even if a drone layer is a more even pattern. Pity you didn't take a pic of one of the frames.

 

[jd101k2000]

Hi MasterBK,

I would just like to add a follow-up... if the bees are likely to be old and heavily infested with varroa would you really want them entering your other hives or are you better off destroying them? (I'm a beginner, so really interested in the 'why' of your solution.)

 

[drstitson]

"if the bees are likely to be old and heavily infested with varroa"

why heavily infested? was the hive not adequately treated in autumn and/or winter?

remember in a case of laying workers there'll likely have been longer brood less period so less varroa.

 

[tidymeup]

Chances are the varroa are in the drone brood that is their so don't transfer the frames of drone brood.

Plus it will be bad comb now and won't be much good for worker brood.

 

[Dave /Oscroft]

Drone layer

Ive got the same problem, queen very elusive, sieved the colony, still no sign, theres also a queen cell now developing and almost sealed, this is probably another drone layer being made ! now what to do !

Dave W

 

[jd101k2000]

"if the bees are likely to be old and heavily infested with varroa"

why heavily infested? was the hive not adequately treated in autumn and/or winter?

remember in a case of laying workers there'll likely have been longer brood less period so less varroa.

I was following up on MasterBK's comment... he suggested that the varroa numbers would be up due to the amount of drone brood... hence my question.

 

[Mrs Shoot]

Chances are the varroa are in the drone brood that is their so don't transfer the frames of drone brood.

Plus it will be bad comb now and won't be much good for worker brood.

Why is the comb now bad and no good for worker brood?

Could you not freeze the frames for 48 hours plus and return the frames to the hive?

 

[ratcatcher]

Why is the comb now bad and no good for worker brood?

I would imagine, wrong sized cell

 

[oliver90owner]

I would imagine, wrong sized cell

Nooo. Wrong sized larvae in worker cells

 

[Mrs Shoot]

Thank you for your replies.

Have this problem as well. Going to smoke the hive and then dump them a little way down the field. Have got plenty of hives for them to beg their way into. Will then get rid of all the brood frames with drone brood.

There is also some drone brood in the super. Thinking of freezing these and then returning to another hive to sort out and carry on filling. The cell size shouldn't make a difference for the collection of honey should it?

 

[Madge]

Ive got the same problem, queen very elusive, sieved the colony, still no sign, theres also a queen cell now developing and almost sealed, this is probably another drone layer being made ! now what to do !

Dave W

If you have a drone-laying queen or laying workers then all the offspring are drones - so no chance of that queen cell containing a queen or a laying worker. It might contain a drone. I've seen a drone crawling out of a cell that looked very much like a queen cell.

 

[SireeDubs]

Have a look at this thread. I knew I had a poorly mated queen, and had snags finding her (she was tiny when I finally did). There's lots of useful discussion about laying workers and poor queens (and discussions of how to find a queen who just won't be found!). There's also a photo you can look at.

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=30179

Good luck.
T

 

[alice-edmund]

Get digital photos of the comb and zoom in on the piccies; it's easier to see than by eye - though obviously takes longer

 

[BeeJayBee]

Ive got the same problem, queen very elusive, sieved the colony, still no sign, theres also a queen cell now developing and almost sealed, this is probably another drone layer being made ! now what to do !

They can sometimes try to make a queen from drone larvae, but it obviously won't come to anything. If they've managed to find one worker egg or larva that they can feed up into an emergency queen there's no reason why she should be a drone layer, unless you stop her going on mating flights.